The unequivocally appalling rhetoric emerging from Cameron himself over the weekend is that, rather than challenge the vast amount of potential tax revenue lost through tax avoidance (not a crime, albeit socially irresponsible) and tax evasion (accounting for the overwhelming majority of the tax gap and a criminal act), they would rather attack some of the poorest members of society. Benefit fraud is undoubtedly a (relatively minor) problem but accounts for a minimal amount of the total fraudulent activity in the UK each year. Of the£5bn figure quoted by Cameron, a significant majority is in the form of benefit error, rather than fraud.

This is all illustrated strikingly by the following rather interesting graph from Left Foot Forward, and reinforced by this damning indictment of the Tory’s misguided focus from Richard Murphy at Tax Research UK.

It’s also fairly unsurprising to discover that there are vested interests between certain credit reference agencies and the Tory party themselves. Experian, one of the UK’s leading credit reference agencies, already has a contract to inspect housing benefit claimants and, with Michael Spencer as its founder, has a major Tory party donor as one of its leading lights.

It’s ultimately a classic illustration of Tory politics. Attack the most vulnerable in society through protecting the interests of the wealthy, replacing state services with unregulated and incompetent private sector provision, a fair amount of cronyism if not corruption itself, and an outcome which only damages society and the economy further. It really has been remarkable to watch just how low the Tories will sink. New depths are reached with every passing week and the downward trajectory shows little sign of abating. Should they not successfully manage to achieve the most blatant and undemocratic piece of gerrymandering in recent decades, they will incur serious damage to their credibility during this first term of office.